Wikisource

The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/From Elizabeth Germain to Jonathan Swift - 15

< The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift‎ | Volume 13
​

FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.


KNOWLE, JULY 9, 1733.


NOW, says Parson Swift[1], What the devil makes this woman write to me with this filthy white ink? I cannot read a word of it, without more trouble than her silly scribble is worth. Why, says I again: Ay, it is the women are always accused of having bad writing implements; but to my comfort be it spoke, this is his grace my lord lieutenant's ink[2]. My bureau at London is so well furnished, and his grace and his secretary make so much use of it, that they are often obliged to give me half a crown, that I may not run out my estate in paper. It is very happy when a gobetween pleases both sides, and I am very well pleased with my office; for his grace is delighted, that it was in his power to oblige you. So trève de compliment. Since I have declared my passion against a bishop and a parson, it is but fair, I should tell you the story, whether you care to hear ​it or not: but if you do not, I give you leave not to mind it, for now it is over, I am calm again.

As to the bishop[3], I know neither his principles nor his parts, but his diocese is Peterborough; and therefore having a small park in Northamptonshire, which I had a mind to increase by a small dab of addition, to make my house stand in the middle of it; three shillings and sixpence worth of the land per annum, at the largest computation, belongs to the church; for which my old parson (who flatters me black and blue, when he comes for a Sunday dinner, and says he loves me better than any body in the world) has made me give him up, in lieu of that land, a house and ground that lets for 40s. a year, and is hardly content with that, but reckons it a vast favour. And the bishop has put me to ten times more charge than it is worth, by sending commissioners to view it, and making me give petitions, and dancing me through his court; beside a great dinner for his nasty people. Now, am I not in the right to be angry? But perhaps you will say, if I will have my fancies, I must pay for them; so I will say no more about it. I hear poor Mrs. Kelly is not near so well as she says; and a gentleman that came from Bristol, says she looks dreadfully, and fears it is almost over with her, and that no mortal could know her, so ends youth and beauty! that is such a moral reflection, that lest it should make you melancholy, I will tell you something to please you. Your old friend Mrs. Floyd is perfectly recovered. I think I have not seen her so well this great while; ​but winter is always her bane, so I shall live in dread of that.

In your next, I desire to know what I am in your debt for my sister's monument. Adieu, my dear, good, old, and well beloved friend.


  1. ↑ The name she called the dean by, in the stanza which she inserted in his ballad on The Game of Traffick.
  2. ↑ The duke of Dorset was then chief governor of Ireland.
  3. ↑ Dr. Robert Clavering, bishop of Llandaff in Dec. 1724; translated to Peterborough in Feb. 1728-9. He died in 1747.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift/Volume_13/From_Elizabeth_Germain_to_Jonathan_Swift_-_15&oldid=10240898"